Current supply apparatus



P 1951 H. H. SPENCER CURRENT SUPPLY APPARATUS Filed April 20, 1950 vs/v r09 H. H. SPENCER A TTORIVE V Patented Sept. 18, 1951 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CURRENT SUPPLY APPARATUS.

Harry H. Spencer, Springfield, N. J., assignor to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated, New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application April 20, 1950,. Serial No. 156,995

2 Claims. 1

This. invention relates to current supply apparatus and more particularly to an arrangement in which a rectifier normally supplies current to a load and to a battery for charging it and in which means are provided for maintaining the load voltage within normal operating limits during a period following a power failure.

In accordance with a feature of the invention, there is provided an alarm circuit which is energized to produce an alarm only in response to a rectifier failure.

In a specific embodiment of the invention herein shown and described for the purpose oi illustration, 2. varistor bridge rectifier is provided for rectifying alternating current supplied thereto and for supplying the rectified current to a load circuit comprising a storage battery and a load connected in a current path across the battery. Suitable means of the type disclosed in a copending application of J. A. Potter, Serial No. 134,916, filed December 24, 1949 (Patent No. 2,563,486, granted August '7, 1951),, for example, are provided for regulating the alternating current supplied to the bridge rectifier in response to load voltage changes for minimizing the load voltage changes. When the supply of rectified current to the battery and load is interrupted due to a power failure, for example, current is supplied to the load from the battery, A resistor is connected in series with the load between a terminal of the battery and a terminal of the load to cause the load voltage to be reduced with respect to the battery voltage. However, when the battery voltage decreases below a normal operating range due to failure of the rectified current supply, for example, a relay responsive to the battery voltage causes the completion of a short-circuiting path across the series resistor, thereby increasing the load voltage to the battery voltage. There is also provided an alarm system for giving an alarm when a rectifier failure occurs and which does not give an alarm in response to a power service failure or in response to low rectifier output during the time required for heating to operating temperature cathodes of space current devices associated with the rectifier.

The invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the accompanying drawing the single figure of which is a schematic view of a current supply system embodying the invention.

Referring to the drawing, there is provided a bridge-type rectifier [0 having selenium or other suitable rectifying elements in the arms of the bridge, the input terminals of the bridge being. connected to the secondary winding of an input transformer H. When alternating current is supplied through transformer H to the rectifier l0, it supplies rectified current through a filtering choke coil I2 and through a resistor 23 to a battery i3. Rectified' current is also supplied to a current path connected across battery l3. comprising resistor l4 and a load i5 in series. The positive terminal of battery I3 is connected to ground.

The primary winding of transformer II is connected in series with the winding abc of an autotransformer i6 and the windings i1 and H3 in parallel of a saturable reactor l9 which also has a saturating Winding 20. Alternating current from a supply source 2| is supplied through the winding of a relay 22 to the circuit comprising autotransformer l6, reactor windings I1 and I8 and the primary of transformer ll, one terminal of the source 2| being connected to the mid- .terminal I: of autotransformer l6 and a terminal of the winding of relay 22 being connected to a common terminal of reactor windings I1, l8 and of the primary of transformer H. The alternating current supplied to the primary of transformer H is controlled by varying the unidirectional current flowing through saturating winding 20 of saturable reactor I9 to change the reactance of windings l1- and I8. When the reactance of windings ll, I8 is such that the current flowing through portion bu. of autotransformer i6 is equal to the current flowing through portion be, the voltage across be is equal to zero because the current flowing in portion ha induces in portion bc a voltage equal and opposite to the, voltage across portion be produced by the current flowing through it. For this condition, the voltage across the primary of transformer l l is substantially equal to the voltage of source 21. The current flowing through portion ba of the. autotransformer l6 induces in portion be a voltage which aids the voltage of source 2|. Therefore, a decrease of current in winding portion be due to an increase of reactance of windings ll, 18 reduces the voltage induced in portion be to cause the voltage impressed upon the transformer l l to decrease. Likewise, an increase of current flowing through portion ha of the autotransformer causes the voltage supplied to the primary of transformer H to increase.

Current is supplied to winding 20 of saturable reactor 19 by an auxiliary rectifier comprising a space current rectifying device 30, the amplitude of the current being controlled by the resistance thereby operating relay 46.

of the space current path of a triode space current device 3 There are provided a transformer having a primary winding 32 and secondary windings 33 and 34, and a transformer having a primary winding 35 and a secondary winding 36. The primary windings 32 and 35 are connected through the winding of relay 22 to the current supply source 2|. Transformer winding 34 supplies heating current to the filamentary cathode of rectifier tube 30 while transformer winding 35 supplies current to the heater of tube 3| to increase the temperature of the indirectly heated cathode. The end terminals of transformer winding 33 are connected to the anodes, respectively, of tube 36 and the mid-terminal of winding 33 is connected to one terminal of reactor winding 20. The other terminal of winding. 20 is connected to the cathode of tube 3| and the anode of tube 3| is connected to the cathode of tube 30, thereby completing a circuit for supplying current rectified by tube 30 to saturating winding 20.

The current supplied to saturating winding 20 may be varied in response to voltage changes across the battery l3 to thereby control the alternating Voltage supplied to rectifier I so as to minimize the load voltage variations. For this purpose the voltage across the battery I3 is connected in series with a source of fixed reference voltage 38 of opposite polarity to the input of a vacuum tube amplifier 37, the output voltage of the amplifier being impressed upon the control grid-cathode circuit of space current device 3|. If the load voltage should increase, for example, the voltagev impressed from amplifier 31 upon the gridrcathode circuit of tube 3| changes in a direction to make the control grid of tube 3| relativelymore negativewithrespect to itscathode.

The current supplied to saturating winding 29 is thereby caused to decrease, thus increasing the reactance of windings l1 and IS. The resulting decrease of the voltage impressed upon the rectifier i6. causes battery |3 to discharge and the voltage across it. to decrease. The initially assumed increase of load voltage is thus minimized.

Apparatus is provided for energizing an alarm to indicate a failure of a regulated rectifier to supply rectified current to the load circuit. Such a jfailuremay occur, for example, due to a failure of tube 30 or tube 3|, thereby interrupting the supply of saturating current to the winding 20 of saturable reactor i9. To prevent false indications, means are provided to permit energization of the alarm only in response to (1) zero or abnormally low rectifier output current, (2) normal power service, (3) abnormally low battery voltage, and (4) an elapsed time sufficient to per mit the heating to operating temperature of cathodes of space current devises such as tubes 30 and 3|. For this purpose there are provided for controlling the energization of a lamp 40 or other suitable indicating device a relay system com- The winding of relay 43 is connected across resistor 23. Decrease of the output current of rectifier iii to zero or an abnormally low amplitude results in the operation of relay 43 to complete a circuit for energizing relay 45 from grounded battery 50. When the voltage of battery l3 decreases to a predetermined voltage, relay 44 operates to close a circuit for supplying current from grounded battery 5| to the winding of relay 46, Relay 22 operates when current from source 2| is being supplied through its winding. With relays 45,46 and 22 the winding of relay 41.

operated, a circuit is completed for supplying current from grounded battery 53 through the winding of thermostatic relay 48 and through the armatures and contacts of relays 46, 22 and 45 to ground at 52. After a delay period equal to or somewhat greater than the time required to heat the cathodes of tubes 30 and 3| to operating temperature when starting the circuit in operation, relay 48 operates to close a circuit for supplying current from grounded battery54 to A circuit is thus completed for energizing lamp 40 by current from battery 55. Separate batteries 50, 5|, 53, 54 and 55 are shownin the drawing for the sake of simplicity but, obviously, the voltages represented by these batteries may be derived from storage battery I3.

The operation of relay 46 in response to abnormally low voltage across battery l3 also completes a circuit for supplying current from battery I3 to the winding of a relay 56. Relay 56 when operated completes a circuit for short-circuiting resistor M. The voltage across the load I5 is thus maintained within normal operating limits for a period after the voltage of battery l3 falls to an abnormally low voltage. By connecting the winding of relay 44 across the battery, hunting is avoided such as might occur if the Winding were connected across the load.

What is claimed is:

1. In combination, rectifying apparatus for rectifying current from an alternating-current supply source and for supplying rectified current to a load, said load comprising a battery, slow operating relay means, an energizing circuit for said relay means for causing said relay means to operate after a delay interval following the completion of said energizing circuit, three switching means in series in said energizing circuit, means for closing a first of said switching means in response to currentsupplied from said supply source to said rectifying apparatus, means for closing a second of said switching means in response to a reduction of current supplied from said rectifying apparatus to said load to a predetermined low amplitude, means for closing said third switching means in response to a reduction of said battery voltage to a predetermined voltage, an indicating device, and means responsive to the operation of said slow operating relay means for completing a circuit for energizing said indicating device.

2. In combination, a battery, a resistor, a load circuit comprising said battery, said resistor and a load all in series, rectifying apparatus for supplying current to said load circuit comprising a thermionic device for rectifying current from an alternating-current supply source, said rectifying apparatus when started in, operation supplying zero or low amplitude current to said load circuit during a delay period required for heating the cathode of said thermionic device to operating temperature, a first electromagnetic relay having a winding connected directly across said battery, said first relay being operated in response to a decrease of the voltage of said battery to a predetermined abnormally low voltage, means responsive to the operation-of said first relay to complete a short-circuiting current path across said resistor, a second electromagnetic relay having a winding energized by current supplied from said rectifying apparatus to said load circuit, said second relay being operated in response to a decrease of said load current to a predeterminedabnormally low amplitude, a

third electromagnetic relay operated in response to current supplied from said supply source to said rectifying apparatus, a fourth relay which operates after a delay interval following its energization, said delay interval being at least as long as the delay period required for heating said cathode, means responsive to the operation of said first, second and third relays for completing a circuit for energizing said fourth relay, an indicating device, and means responsive to the operation of said fourth relay for causing the eating device.

HARRY H. SPENCER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 860,305 Knapp et a1 July 16, 1907 1,231,991 Bliss July 3, 1917 1,574,747 Auth Mar. 2, 1926 1,681,265 Sullivan Aug. 21, 1928 1,702,724 Dewar Feb. 19, 1929 2,155,515 Trucksess Apr. 25, 1939 2,326,313 Trucksess Aug. 10, 1943 2,366,505 Fletcher Jan. 2, 1945 2,368,638 Spencer Oct. 9, 1945 

